Having two teeth or tooth-like projections; in chemistry, describing a ligand that bonds to a metal at two points.
From bi- (two) and dentate from Latin dentatus (toothed). The chemical sense developed in the late 20th century to describe ligands with two bonding sites, using the 'tooth-like' metaphor.
In chemistry, 'bidentate' shows how scientists raid everyday language for metaphors—a molecule gripping a metal atom 'like teeth' lets chemists visualize complex bonding in a simple way.
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